Episodic Memory
I think the lesson made a great point about episodic memory being the strongest for students. This reinforces the need to bring life experiences into relevance with the class and at the same time answers the question "why is this important?". This will then lead to greater motivation and retention - our goal all along.
When teaching/introducing a new concept I have utilized this technique: Prior to any lecture or topic discussion I will breifly cue up a senario only providing enough information for students to make some assumptions/pick a side/choose how to handle the situation (this usually cues up a good debate on the senario/situation)
Then I will put it aside and lecture or discuss key points, etc....
Then I will reintroduce the senario and we discuss if students want or need to change their course of action based on their new knowledge.
Requires some pre-planning... but usally makes for a memorable discusion on course objectives.
Hi Kristen!
Relating real world stories is such a vital part of career college education. I have found that because so many of the students are non-traditional students, they can make learning so fulfilling and interesting. And yes - we do have that occasional monopolizer, but it seems to work itself out.
Sounds like you have a great teaching approach!
Keep up the good work!
Jane Davis
ED106 Facilitator
I frequently tell stories in class to relate the information at hand to the real world. Sometimes I will have a student that decided to share a story as well, which is nice. In the past students have monopolized the class with their stories- it is a fine line.
Another way of thinking about this idea of storytelling being more memorable is the concept called "experiential truth" versus "propositional truth." Sharing a story based on personal experience (relating an experience using concrete details) is much more powerful than stating a proposition, or telling an abstraction. For example, mentioning that a newspaper editor was fired because one of his reporters was caught plagiarizing wikepedia is more memorable than stating that plagiarism is a serious offense.
I remember that I always found the most interesting instructors were the ones that told relevant stories. Frequently, it would inspire students to share their stories as well. On occasion, we would not get through all the points on the day's agenda, but I certainly always remembered the lessons learned from those lectures more than the boring ones.
